Having assumed the mantle as Symmons Plains' most successful team with two Craig Lowndes wins on Saturday, the V8 Supercars' benchmark outfit increased its stranglehold on the venue podium as Jamie Whincup took over both winning responsibilities and the championship lead.

Red Bull has now won 14 of the last 17 races at the tight 2.4-kilometre circuit with its Holdens also claiming the last six pole positions.

While Lowndes was unable to complete the victory he needed to become the first driver to reach a century, Whincup did enough to overtake Mark Skaife into outright second on 91.

Lowndes's perfect weekend looked set to continue when he claimed his third straight pole but the champagne went flat within 200 metres.

In front of most of the 19,802 spectators parked at turn two, the 40-year-old duelled with David Reynolds (Bottle-O Racing), causing the Ford driver to spin and wait for the entire field to pass before he could safely resume.

The altercation, which had a knock-on effect of also extending Will Davison's dismal weekend in his Erebus Mercedes, was intently scrutinised by officials who eventually signalled a drive-through penalty for Lowndes.

To their credit, Lowndes and Reynolds both knuckled down to work their way back through to sixth and 11th respectively, but just under 84 laps after being handed the lead from third on the grid, Whincup gladly accepted his 11th win at Symmons.

Chaz Mostert's Pepsi Max "rocket ship", to use his own words, and Shane van Gisbergen (Darrell Lea STIX) completed a rather processional podium as predictions that tyres, fuel and weather would liven up the racing failed to materialise.

Understandably, Whincup was delighted to claim maximum points and the championship lead despite readily admitting he did not have the best car on the track and simply reaped the "dividends" of his rivals' misfortunes.

"I wasn't expecting to be standing on the top step of the podium this weekend, but I'm absolutely thrilled," he said.

"We didn't have the pace today, so we stayed out of trouble. I'd prefer to have the pace and race hard for the win, so we sort of semi-circulated today and had enough to get there in the end.

"It's a huge shame not to see Lowndesy get the hat-trick and his 100 race wins, so hopefully that's not far around the corner. It's still early days; we're not really thinking about the championship at this point, but it's nice to be at the pointy end."

A philosophical Lowndes accepted his punishment, adding: "I'm gutted because of the car speed we had today, we could have at least stood on the podium. You'd think that we could have been on the top step".